Unveiling

You laugh at me, say it’s not 
the apocalypse, say it’s not good 
that I should be this worried.

I know it’s not the apocalypse. 
That’s your word. I have my own word 
for this. I call it the Unveiling —

which is, by the way, what your word
originally meant. You’ve turned the thought
of secrets revealed into the end of the world

and I think that’s right for you, but not for me,
and not for so many of us who see this world
the way we always have, though now

your secrets are out in the open and 
that might indeed be the end of your world
and the beginning of ours. It’s going 

to hurt like childbirth. It’s going to be
soaked in blood.  It might take a long time
but we know that your future is in apocalypse

as ours is in unveiling. Revealed:
in coming years you will be in eclipse
and we will be in ascent. Revealed:

that you are bold today means little
to those who have always known
what you hid from yourself. Revealed:

what’s coming at us today
is a hard kick from a frantic leg
on a dying beast.  Revealed:

we know you better
than you have allowed yourself
to know. Revealed, unveiled, exposed:

your backlash is just the same old violence
it ever was, only grown more savage because
it knows how short its time truly is.